The Triumph of Katie Byrne

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

‘It’s me.’ Xenia wondered who Katie could possibly think it was, if not her.

  Katie turned the key and opened the door.

  Xenia, staring at her intently, said a trifle sharply, ‘I don’t understand you. Jarvis may be off tonight, but he always goes around the house locking the outside doors. And even if he didn’t, Verity would. You have a ridiculous obsession about locking yourself in…it’s…crazy.’

  ‘No, I don’t!’ Katie exclaimed heatedly. ‘It’s just a habit, I guess. And I’m not crazy.’

  Fractionally, Xenia hesitated, and then she said, ‘Can I come in for a minute? I want to talk to you. Or would you prefer to talk in my room? There are other pictures there you could peer at.’ Suddenly, her voice had an edge to it.

  Katie felt herself flushing and she shook her head, said with vehemence, ‘I wasn’t prying, Xenia. I wasn’t. And I’m so sorry you’re upset. I just happened to notice the picture of Tim and the little boy…’ Her voice trailed off helplessly. She was at a loss.

  ‘I know, I know,’ Xenia muttered, and pushed the door, walked purposefully into the room. ‘I wouldn’t have invited you up here to Burton Leyburn if I’d wanted to hide my past. I was going to tell you certain things tomorrow. But before I got the chance, you saw the photograph, which I’d forgotten was there on the chest in the Great High Chamber –’

  Cutting herself off, Xenia closed the door behind her, looked keenly at Katie. ‘Do you mind? Can I stay for a few minutes? Talk to you, Katie?’

  ‘Yes, of course. And you don’t have to tell me anything. You’re my friend, I care about you, and I certainly wouldn’t pry into your past. It must be painful for you…to discuss.’

  Xenia sat down in one of the chairs. She bent forward, put her head on her knees, sat immobile like that for a few minutes. Eventually, she straightened, took a number of deep breaths. Then she began, ‘Justin was six when it happened. Tim was taking him to Harrogate. It was June, not winter, not bad weather. No rain. It was a fine, sunny day. No reason for a huge lorry to skid, to go out of control. But it did.’

  Xenia stopped abruptly, compressed her lips, screwed her eyes shut and looked up at the ceiling. Her hands were clenched into fists, and her body trembled. Taking deep breaths, she swallowed hard, pushing back the tears. She was so choked up she could not speak. Finally, she opened her eyes. ‘The lorry slammed into the car. They were killed instantly. My husband, my son. Nine years ago. I suppose I still haven’t…got over it…so sorry…to break down like this.’

  Xenia pressed her fingers to her eyes as the tears leaked out, slipped through her fingers, slid down her cheeks.

  Katie went to her, knelt on the floor next to her knees and encircled Xenia with her arms. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so very sorry. You didn’t have to tell me…’

  Without saying a word, Xenia clung to Katie, held onto her very tightly, trying to regain her composure. After a while she did so, and released Katie from her grip; she groped in her pocket for a tissue. After blowing her nose, she said quietly, ‘As long as I don’t talk about it, I’m all right.’ She cleared her throat, went on, ‘I can function fairly well these days…Is that the way it is for you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s often struck me that there’s some sort of tragedy in your past, Katie. And that you don’t talk about it, so you can get on with a relatively normal life. As I try to do.’

  Katie sat down heavily in the other chair.

  She did not answer at first. Then finally, she replied: ‘I suppose so. I haven’t been able to talk about…what happened. Not for years, not without falling apart. But I think about it every day. It never leaves me.’

  ‘I know. Can you tell me about it?’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Katie sat quietly in the chair, trying to marshal her thoughts so that she could speak coherently about the murderous attack on her girlfriends in Malvern long ago.

  Part of her balked at dredging up the past, speaking out loud about it to Xenia, because it was painful for her to do this even now, years later.

  She lived with the memories of Carly and Denise on a daily basis, and they were forever with her. It was usually in that quiet time just before she fell asleep, or was fully awake in the morning, that their faces were most vivid in her mind’s eye. She had never forgotten them or what had happened, but to recount everything to Xenia would almost be like living through it all over again.

  Yet, in a sense, she was boxed in, because Xenia had been so open with her about the untimely deaths of Tim and Justin. Katie felt that if she did not confide about her own past the relationship between them would somehow be damaged, and irretrievably so. And that was the last thing she wanted.

  Xenia was the first real friend she had made in all these years, and she was important to her. In many ways, Xenia had stepped into the gap left by Denise and Carly; certainly no one else had ever been able to fill it.

  Tell her about it, a small voice at the back of her head whispered. Tell her everything. Maybe it will help you if you unburden yourself.

  Leaning forward slightly, her hands clasped together, Katie took what was a giant leap for her, when she said: ‘It all happened when I was seventeen.’

  She paused for a split second, staring off into the distance, then quickly brought her eyes back to Xenia, adding, ‘It was in October of 1989. Exactly ten years ago.’

  Xenia simply nodded. She sensed that Katie had an upsetting tale to tell, and deemed it wiser not to say one word, lest it put her off. But she shivered involuntarily, intuitively knowing that she was about to hear something awful. Sinking further down in the armchair, she focused her attention entirely on Katie.

  ‘When you and I first met two years ago, I told you that I had always wanted to be an actress since I was a child. What I didn’t tell you was that I had two friends who harboured the same ambitions, Carly Smith and Denise Matthews. The three of us had been friends since we were little. We were the same age. We grew up together, went to the same kindergarten, the same high school, lived in the same area around the little town of Malvern in northwestern Connecticut. We planned to go to New York when we were eighteen, to attend the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. We were going to live with Aunt Bridget, who had a loft in Tribeca in those days, until we became accustomed to New York and the academy. Then she was going to find an apartment for the three of us to share. We were inseparable…everyone knew that, knew how close we were.’

  Katie stopped, appeared to hesitate.

  Xenia said quickly, ‘Go on, Katie, I’m listening.’

  Slowly, and with great care and deliberation, Katie continued her story. She told Xenia about the old barn and how Denise’s Uncle Ted had let them use it. She spoke of the years the three of them had spent rehearsing there, and of the school concerts every Christmas. Until finally she was recounting the events of that fateful day in October of 1989.

  She explained how she had left the barn early that day, gone home to help her mother, had remembered later that she had left her bag of school books behind, and had returned with her brother to retrieve them. And then she told Xenia about the disarray in the barn, the missing girls, and how she and Niall had searched for them.

  ‘It was Carly I saw first, lying there in the wood, her face covered in blood,’ Katie said, her voice shaking more than ever. ‘But Niall found a pulse, and she was alive, and I was so happy, relieved. He left me with Carly, went off to look for Denise…’ Katie paused, took several deep breaths to steady herself. ‘Poor Denise…She was dead, Xenia. Raped and strangled.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Xenia’s eyes were wide with horror as she stared at Katie. ‘To be struck down like that, both so young, with their lives stretching ahead of them. How terrible for them, and for you, Katie.’ She shook her head. ‘And what about Carly? She did live, didn’t she?’

  ‘Oh yes –’

  ‘So she was able to point a finger…identify the attacker.’

  ‘No, no, she couldn’t. Carly never re
gained consciousness. She went into a coma.’

  For a moment Xenia seemed uncomprehending, and she threw Katie a puzzled look, frowning. ‘And she never came out of it? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘That’s right. Carly has been in a coma for the last ten years. She’s in a hospital in Connecticut.’ Katie’s mouth trembled, and her eyes filled suddenly with tears. She brushed them away with both hands, took hold of herself and added, ‘But she’s also dead, in a certain sense. Lost to us all, trapped in the coma.’

  Xenia sat back, not speaking for a moment. At last she murmured softly, sympathetically, ‘I’m so very sorry, Katie darling. So dreadfully sorry this happened to you. What a heartbreaking thing for you to bear. Did the police catch the murderer?’

  ‘No, they didn’t. It’s an unsolved case. Mac MacDonald, the detective in charge of the major crime squad in the Litchfield area, has never closed the case. It’s still open, it’s still on the books, that’s the way he puts it.’

  ‘So you’re in touch with him about the case even now?’

  ‘I’m not, but my father and he went to school together. Ever since they met again, through the…the murder, they’ve become close friends. Mac believes something will happen, come to light, and that he’ll solve the case one day. Dad says it really bugs him that he was never able to arrest the murderer at the time.’

  ‘Why didn’t he?’

  ‘Because he didn’t know who it was. Mac told my father that it was a really bad crime scene, no clues at all. The Medical Examiner did get DNA samples off Denise’s body, but they were of no use.’

  ‘Whyever not? I thought DNA samples helped to solve crimes,’ Xenia asserted.

  ‘That’s true, yes. But you have to have a suspect to match to the DNA samples. And if you don’t, all you’ve got are…DNA samples.’

  ‘So no one was ever suspected or caught.’

  ‘That’s right. According to Dad, Mac has always thought that it was someone who knew us. A man who more than likely was leading a very normal life. On the surface. But one who was a psychopath in reality. A man who stalked us, targeted us…the three of us.’

  ‘But he only got two of you, and that’s why you’re so afraid.’

  Katie could only nod.

  Xenia muttered, ‘No wonder you’re always locking doors.’

  ‘At first, just after the murder happened, it made me feel safer, and then it did truly become a habit,’ Katie responded. ‘You see, my parents were certain there was somebody out there watching me, waiting for an opportunity to get me. In a way they were torn about what to do…they wanted me to be with them in Malvern, so they could protect me, watch over me. Yet at the same time, they wanted to get me out of the area.’

  ‘I fully understand that,’ said Xenia, clasping her hands, leaning forward. ‘It’s a very natural reaction. And is that why you went to live with Bridget in New York?’

  ‘Yes. But I didn’t leave home immediately, I stayed on in Malvern until I was nineteen,’ Katie explained. ‘For one thing, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be an actress any more. Not without Carly and Denise. It didn’t seem to be the same. I thought that acting was tainted, because of their deaths. And anyway, the spark had gone out of me. I felt so guilty because I’d talked them into going to the barn that day, and I’d left early. Left them alone. If I’d been there, perhaps we could have fought him off, and maybe the outcome would have been different.’

  ‘Survivor guilt,’ Xenia ventured softly. ‘I know all about that, and only too well. I was supposed to go with Tim and Justin to Harrogate that morning in June, but I changed my mind at the last minute. I stayed here to help Jarvis sort stuff in one of the storage rooms. And that’s why I’m alive and they’re dead. I’ve always felt that I should be dead too, you know.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m alive because of a pile of old junk.’

  Katie nodded her understanding. ‘As I just said, the spark had gone out of me, and I discovered I couldn’t act any more. It was literally impossible for me to walk on a stage. I had developed the worst kind of stage fright. I just shook all the time and my legs trembled. The year the attack happened, I dropped out of the Christmas concert at school. I’d been going to do the soliloquy from Hamlet, but I just couldn’t. That’s what I’d been rehearsing the day they were attacked. Anyway, I guess I retreated into…a shell.’

  ‘And how did you manage to pull yourself out of it?’

  ‘I didn’t, not really. It was my mother who dragged me up from the depths of despair. She was wonderful. She insisted I go to New York and enrol in the academy, and she came with me to hold my hand. She stayed with Bridget and me for a few months, and slowly I began to enjoy classes. I also managed to shed some of my fear.’

  ‘But not all of it?’ Xenia lifted a brow quizzically.

  ‘No. I did get a bit paranoid at one point, and I was always looking over my shoulder. I guess it’s never gone away completely…the fear. Nor has the idea that I was the only one who escaped. Mac thinks that he, the perp as he calls him, may have moved out of the area, gone far away to avoid eventual capture. I want to believe Mac’s right. Besides, New York is a big city.’

  ‘It is indeed, but you are an actress, Katie, and bound to be seen, and known, in the limelight, so –’ Xenia immediately cut herself off, shaking her head. ‘I suppose I don’t have to tell you anything, do I?’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Katie answered. ‘And I do sometimes worry about being up there on a stage…a target, a sitting duck.’

  ‘Is that the reason you’ve turned down so many big parts?’

  ‘I honestly don’t think so. The ones Melanie Dawson offered me certainly weren’t right. All wrong for me, in fact, and her husband Harry agreed.’

  ‘You’re not hesitating about taking the part in Charlotte and Her Sisters for that reason are you…the fear, I mean?’

  ‘I don’t think so…I just don’t know, to be honest,’ Katie admitted ruefully. She rose, walked over to the tall, mullioned window and looked out across the gardens. It was dark and she could barely see anything.

  The velvet-black sky was littered with crystal stars and high up, in one corner, there was a crescent moon. It was a friendly sky, benign.

  Turning around, walking back to the chair, Katie continued, ‘What happened ten years ago has really affected my life, Xenia, changed me in so many ways. It’s made me a bit paranoid, admittedly, and even afraid. For a time it turned me off acting. And men. Still, I did come back to acting. I do get a lot of satisfaction from performing.’

  ‘But you’re still very wary of men, that I do know.’

  Katie nodded, made no response.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but Grant Miller is not for you. I know he’s a wonderful actor, but he’s just not up to snuff, not good enough for you.’

  ‘Oh I know. And it’s over, at least as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Does Grant know that?’

  ‘I’ve tried to tell him, and I made it very obvious when he came to London six months ago. I hope it’s sunk in, that he won’t be pestering me if I go back.’

  ‘I hope you take this part. It’ll be the making of you, Katie. I feel this deep down…call it…gut instinct.’

  ‘I want to do the play, Xenia, as long as I can master the character of Emily,’ Katie admitted. ‘Because I want to succeed. Not just for me, but for them. For Carly and Denise…they wanted to be actresses so much, so I want to do it for them as well as for myself. Being on Broadway…well, you know, it was their dream as well as mine. Do you understand what I mean?’

  ‘I do. I think you’re very brave.’

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Katie stood at the end of the avenue of trees, looking towards the front of the house, admiring its imposing beauty on this cold Friday morning. Although she was not an expert on architecture like her father was, she could easily recognize that Burton Leyburn Hall was an extraordinary example of the late-Elizabethan style.

  It was built of
the pale-grey stone that seemed to be prevalent in Yorkshire, and which worked so well with the surrounding landscape. The roofline was crenellated, and the house was a lovely combination of bays and recesses, gables and battlements, tall chimneys, and many mullioned windows, all of them soaring and elegant, glinting in the bright sunlight.

  When she had arrived yesterday afternoon, the house had looked mysterious in the fading light. But on this early morning it seemed to be just the opposite. Steadfast, stalwart, made to last, were the words which instantly sprang into Katie’s mind. And it was built to last, she thought; obviously it hasn’t flinched for four hundred years.

  Walking back up to the house and around to the south side, she came to a wide terrace with a balustrade which ran the entire length of the house. The rail and row of balusters beneath it were broken in the middle, to permit a flight of wide stone steps to flow down to the parterre, the beds and paths of this ornamental flower garden arranged to form an intricate pattern of elegance.

  About fourteen feet beyond the parterre, the lawns began and these swards of green stretched all the way to the ornamental lake, which was just visible in the distance. On either side of the lawns were stands of huge trees, and with their broad, gnarled trunks and great spreading branches they added shelter to the gardens and offered shade in summer.

  Once again Katie experienced that sense of timelessness which she had felt when arriving here. History abounded in this ancient house and on these lavish lands, gifted to the Leyburn family by the great Tudor queen. She couldn’t help wondering what it was that Robert Leyburn had done for Elizabeth to make her favour him with such an extravagant gift. She made a mental note to ask Verity.

  Since it was still not yet eight, which was when breakfast was put out, Katie decided to walk down to the ornamental lake. As she walked she thought about Xenia and their revealing conversation last night. She was pleased they had shared confidences; she felt, in her heart, that it had brought them closer. Although they hadn’t known it before, they had both endured a traumatic experience earlier in their lives. Now that they had recounted their experiences to each other, they understood each other better than before. At least, that’s what Katie felt. She considered it a bond of sorts.